The Borderlands (2015)

--major, MMMAJOR spoiler alert-- . . i seriously do not understand how movies of this sort achieve 5+ rating, i'm not venting right now, i wish i could ask some of the people that rated it as such, 'cause i truly fail to understand this. well done, once again you made me waste time and money on this horrendous, childish nonsense.the characters are flat and meaningless, deacon and michael especially who are just both awful, unlikeable and poorly acted cardboard cutouts of people, why would you care about anything that happens to these two is beyond me. gray likewise gives the impression he just popped into existence: no story, bland meaningless character with a single, recurring 1-sided phone call that links his character to anything happening beyond the perimeter of these "borderlands", and to whom it's given the sad task to inject an attempt at pitiful humour into the story, and what story? what is it that happens in this movie, exactly? a single, exceedingly (no. not enough. Exceedingly. nope. EXCEEEEEDINGLY, better... i so hope never to see this man in movies again. EVER. AGAIN.) poorly acted and equally 2-dimensional character who's thankfully been on screen all of 3 minutes total commits suicide, and a single, actual gem of brilliance gives me hope (yet dashed) for future development when gray goes out for a cigarette break and amazingly fails to see his own headstone. mhhh... sheep on fire? OK... that was a moment... but why? who were those guys? what motivated them? why do they wear hoods? why do they harass the protagonists? why does anything happen here AT ALL? well, viewers, that's why it's a horror/"MYS-TE-RY" movie, get it?no.once again, Once a-freakking-gain, another movie that, having just had a scene with a sliver of genius that makes you hope for something better to come, then devolves into a senseless, pointless underground chase for a character who just refuses to stop or at least reply, and who's always just out of reach (see: "as above, so below", the twin to this reeking pile of dog doo, and a dozen of the other 2p movies i've watched in the last 6 months) with nobody ever questioning why would they do that, or where are we going here, 'cause of course it's a friggin labirynth... leading to what i believe is the scene for which the entire movie was greenlit, the "final minute".i would bet my "final dollar" they made the entire mess of a movie on the back of that last minute, they even changed the title, right? from "borderlands" (which borderlands, what are they on about for the love of Bob) to "final prayer"? the directing writer obviously couldn't find a sane a-leads-to-b-leads-to-something-plausible reason for why "our" characters all of a sudden find themselves inside Satan's rectum (...AH YES... (note 1)), so have them blindly follow someone and just find themselves there, OK so we manouvered ourselves so that there's no-one left to "lampshade" the stupidity of it for the viewers, let's just throw it out there, it'll work, they're horror watchers, so morons after all.well, yes, if you managed to give a 5+ to this movie, yes, sorry, but yes, you are.Neil, London, UK. (note 1) and now that you've read that you're going to rent the movie aren't you? aren't you? i'm warning you, don't, it's not going to be even half as much fun as this post was.

I am like a lot of movie lovers these days, I have had my fill of found footage flicks. Once in awhile one comes along that doesn't make me want to break my TV. This movie had enough coverage with all of the cameras, the story was intriguing and the actors did a very nice job selling their characters. If you want a movie with a ton of jump scares then go elsewhere. If you want a buildup to a great, unexpected ending, then stick around. Yes, the ending of this movie was completely unexpected. I am so glad that I didn't read any reviews or comments about this movie before I watched. I just went on blind faith and I was treated to a great movie. I am a fan of the genre of movie that has to do with the idea of hell or demons or what other place there is in the afterlife. Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, Limbo, whatever. This movie had enough of the in the dark creep factor to keep me on the edge of my seat and the ending just capped it off like a nice Grand Marnier.

I really liked this movie. The low rating does it a disservice but I can understand it, being a movie that is relatively subtle and builds gradually without relying on old school jumps, cranky action sequences or gore at all. It gave me the creeps, and I'm not one to scare easily. I am a big horror fan and have been watching horror since I was far too young to be doing so but generally find the current state of horror to be fairly insipid and uninspiring, unimaginative and not scary, particularly the multiplex horror of recent times. I actually went into this one with fairly high expectations on the back of a recommendation by celebrated UK film critic Mark Kermode who, despite what else you might think of him, really does know his horror, inside out, and also generally seems to share the opinion that a lot of newer horror cinema is lacking in ideas, so when he does recommend a new horror movie I tend to take note. I'm glad I did. It's hard to put my finger on any one specific thing which made this film experience as effective as it was but I'm sure the fantastic rumbling, building, sinister but cleverly sparse soundtrack had something to do with it. The acting was good and the confusion and panic which slowly creeps in was well played out, the script was great, giving equal space for humour as well as terror which never felt forced but on the contrary balances the tone of the film out nicely. Probably most importantly the characters are brilliantly written which is becoming something of a rarity in modern horror cinema it seems. The relationship between the two main characters was a joy to watch develop and was most definitely a major contributing factor in how effecting I found the ending when it finally rears its ugly head. You care about these two. You've warmed to them, you like them, and to see them in such a desperate state of peril gets you right in the gut. It's been a long time since I felt such a sense of dread and discomfort throughout the last act of a film and a long time since the last few moments of a film have stuck in my mind in such a way and left me reeling like it did once the credits hit (with the exception of Kill List, another fantastic recent British horror film that is comparable to this in many ways, sharing the building sense of dread that creeps over you throughout). This is a decent effort by a talented film-maker which manages to do something different with the 'found footage' format and I very much look forward to seeing what they do next.

Film-makers can't really win with stories of this sort. The plot moves along, the characters do their thing, and then tension gradually increases. But, in the end, we either have to be shown the monster (or whatever), or we don't. Either way, we go away disappointed. If we see the monster, then our reaction is (to paraphrase Stephen King) "Ugh! It's a 30-foot bug. But at least it's not a 300-foot bug!" If we don't see the monster, we're left wondering what on earth it was all about.Sometimes not showing us the monster can work; for example, the story might be cleverly ambiguous about whether there really is a monster at all. In this movie, however, we know there is a monster. And that makes the ending particularly lazy and inept because, if the film-makers aren't going to show us the monster whose existence has been increasingly strongly hinted at, the film has to offer us something else. But it doesn't -- it's just curtains down, at no particular point.Still, credit where it's due. The small cast of characters is convincingly written and portrayed well. The scenery/environment is engaging and atmospheric, and the church where a lot of the action takes place is creepy, but not unbelievably so. In fact, I enjoyed the movie right up until the last twenty minutes or so, when it became heart-sinkingly clear that there wasn't going to be any plot resolution.I don't mind a movie that leaves me wondering what happens next. What irks me is a movie in which it's patently obvious that even the writer had no idea what happens next, and probably didn't much care. On the whole, I'd rather have seen a 30-foot bug.